Claude Puel

Remember Prague

 

 

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Indeed. The 1-1 at home to Hapoel Be’er Sheva was equally unforgivable. Puel played for a 0-0 and we only looked bothered after conceding.

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Yeah 3-0 at home, in Europe, packed noisy SMS, under the flood lights, Austin and J-rod on the score sheet good memories man good memories

I see what you did there. [emoji122]

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Some ****in **** on Sky Sports (Taggart) trying to justify the appointment with the statement “well look where Southampton are since sacking him”

umm yeah, 10th and one point behind the mighty Liverpool you ***** !

I think it was the right decision to get rid of him, because we regressed in the final quarter of the season rather than building on the positives that we saw January - March, and it also appeared like he had lost the dressing room to an extent. I'm not sure we've replaced him with the right person, but that's a different matter.

Nevertheless, I think Claude conducted himsellf very well throughout his time here during difficult times, not least at the end of his tenure when the club acted very poorly in dragging their feet over his inevitable sacking - no doubt hoping to squirm out of paying his termination fee following interest from St Etienne. He deserved better than being hung out to dry.

Furthermore, he led the team in some of the most memorable moments/matches that I've had following Saints for some 25+ years. Yes, he might not have got us into Europe, and there were a few bleak moments along the way, but I saw us outplay Inter at the San Siro for 45 minutes, beat Inter at St Mary's, 85 minutes of an enthralling cup final and of course turning Liverpool over to get there.

For that reason I wish him no ill, though obviously hope to take maximum points off him and finish above him in the league! It will also be interesting to see how he goes about his job at Leicester. They are not a team set up for 'sideways' football, so it may give us an insight as to whether the issues during his time here were more to do with his philosophy, the players at his disposal, or pressure from the powers that be...

So when all the stories came up about his missus not settling around Southampton it turns out what she was angling for is a move to the East Midlands. Maybe she just likes Pork Pies.

great post

Watch the jammy git draw Bristol City in the next round of the cup , You can bet your life he'll go to Leicester and have them playing great football too haha ! #Itsthesouthamptonway

He is stil in the cup..quarter finals as well....maybe a cup final two years running for him!

He arrived at Saints, a club without an established striker. He goes to Leicester who have Vardy. What he might have achieved here if Uncle Les had given him a decent striker. So let's see what might have been before we sneer.

I've come across a few people at work who are great at interviews but crap at their jobs.....

This is a win-win for me

If Puel does rubbish, it weakens one of our rivals.

If Puel does well, I get to say I told you so.

For the benefit of the club, I would prefer the first one to happen, and am happy to be proved wrong.

Good luck to him, have no real ill feeling towards him.

Great, another negative possession obsessed Gimp managing in the Premier League. The game is at a tipping point as an entertainment vehicle (see 'losing interest' thread). I wonder if anyone will cross the halfway line on December 13th?

It's a strange one for Leicester. After winning the Prem not long ago you'd have thought they'd want to do everything they can to stay in the League. Perhaps the owners feel a relegation and a clear out will ultimately do the club good in the long run. It's a risky strategy, but one which could pay off massively.

Will just be interested to see if it's this year or next they take the drop.

Great, another negative possession obsessed Gimp managing in the Premier League. The game is at a tipping point as an entertainment vehicle (see 'losing interest' thread). I wonder if anyone will cross the halfway line on December 13th?

A few 40 to 60 yo blokes pining for yesteryear on a thread does not constitute a tipping point.

I've come across a few people at work who are great at interviews but crap at their jobs.....

Hello Harvey

:wave:

Find it infuriating hearing pundits go on about 8th place. I get fans are black and white and can't put a coherent thought together half the time, but if you're paid to give insight at least look at the fcking table.

 

8th? Fck off. 8th-17th were dross. Order meant absolutely nothing, just luck of other teams losing games in final weeks while we did nothing. Yet the experts ignore most the squad going backwards, ignore the huge points drop, ignore the huge goals drop, ignore the insipid football, ignore the poor signings. 8th.

 

There is no difference being 8th on 60 points and beating the big clubs to 8th on 46 points and beating no one of note. Fans don't care about fewer goals, fewer wins, merit, worse football and little hope for the future. Just the league table.

Stuart Pearce was banging on about how Martin O’Neill was a perfect fit for the job. There are so many sh1t pundits and then there is Pearce.......and Garth Crooks.

Not really, nothing he achieves at Leicester will change what he did at Southampton. If he does go there and play exciting, attacking football it will just leave many of us wondering why he was the complete opposite at Saints. It's the same as people saying MP under-performing means it was wrong to sack Puel. It wasn't, it just means we may have appointed the wrong successor.

And the rest of us will recognize it would be because they have Vardy, Iheanacho, Mahrez, Slimani and Okazaki, instead of the Long and J-Rod for most of the season. And not having matches every other Thursday.

I see Always has joined the Leicester forum, telling them what an astute tactician Puel is!!

He will probably do better at Leicester, more so because he does not have the dead weight that is Eric Black at the club (yet)!!

How many of those shots where from 30 yards with no hope of beating the keeper? What was the average position of those shots? If you look, our shooting accuracy last year (33%) was actually marginally better than the 15/16 season (32%).... Lack of quality, or lack of quality chances?

 

Of those shots, the top 3 to have a shot were Redmond (83) Tadic (63) and JWP (42). All midfielders, to me, that would suggest we didn't have enough shots from inside the box, which is where you are most likely to score....

 

Stats can be useful, but they can also be misguiding without any real substance behind them.

 

If you compare those shots to 'big chances created' (although it has to be said I do not know what constitutes a 'big chance') it paints a damning tail...

 

12/13 - 45

13/14 - 53

14/15 - 50

15/16 - 61

16/17 - 35!!!

 

West Brom, as a comparison, managed 36

That's a bit disingenuous when our strikers rotated so much, so naturally none of them will have a high number of total shots. Also, if you look at who took most of our shots in prior years, Tadic took similar total shots, and Redmond took less shots than Mane (Same role, just way way less output). Our strikers actually shot more often than in 2015/16:

Midfielder shots:

2015/16 - Mane(86), Tadic(56), JWP(28)

2016/17 - Redmond(83), Tadic(63), JWP(42)

Striker shots:

2015/16 - Pelle(81), Long(63), JRod(17), Austin( = 169 over 4838 minutes = 3.15 Shots/game

2016/17 - Long(41), Austin(37), JRod(33), Gabbi(29) = 140 over 3799 minutes = 3.32 Shots/game

A big chance is a 1on1 or almost point-blank shot. Big chance numbers are naturally going to go down when you lose creative attacking players. Lambert/Lallana and Pelle/Mane were great at being a pivot or a link to play someone in. Our current team has no one like that. Redmond doesn't create anywhere near as much as Mane/Lallana and Gabbi/JRod/Long don't linkup anywhere near as well as Pelle/Lambert.

He arrived at Saints, a club without an established striker. He goes to Leicester who have Vardy. What he might have achieved here if Uncle Les had given him a decent striker. So let's see what might have been before we sneer.

Les got him a decent striker last January when we signed Gabbiadini.

He scored goals as you will recall until, in his words, "the manager changed things when i came back from injury and it was much tougher".....or words to that effect.

Les got him a decent striker last January when we signed Gabbiadini.

He scored goals as you will recall until, in his words, "the manager changed things when i came back from injury and it was much tougher".....or words to that effect.

Came back from injury being the main point totally destroyed Gabbis goal scoring momentum getting injured.

I see Always has joined the Leicester forum, telling them what an astute tactician Puel is!!

 

He will probably do better at Leicester, more so because he does not have the dead weight that is Eric Black at the club (yet)!!

And i guess you have been on to tell them he will be gone by christmas

Just listened to the French journo on 5live, and he gave CP great reviews and said that the first season was to get a strong base and then go on from there. I strongly believe we have dropped a bolok, not only with the sacking, but also his replacement.

It will be interesting to see if CP does well if that adds pressure on Pellgrino if he is still feeding us, unstructured nowhere football.

Well OldNick, from a customers' point of view, I found what was on offer last season devoid of any entertainment. Sure we had a win over Inter thanks to an own goal and we had the Cup run, but that all pales into insignificance with the dross in the league. I still cannot get out of my mind the home game against Hull. And that there nearly made me not renew my ST.

I see Always has joined the Leicester forum, telling them what an astute tactician Puel is!!

 

He will probably do better at Leicester, more so because he does not have the dead weight that is Eric Black at the club (yet)!!

What is about people who join other club’s forums? Attention seeking turd!

Well OldNick, from a customers' point of view, I found what was on offer last season devoid of any entertainment. Sure we had a win over Inter thanks to an own goal and we had the Cup run, but that all pales into insignificance with the dross in the league. I still cannot get out of my mind the home game against Hull. And that there nearly made me not renew my ST.

Very rarely in those years did I see the exhilarating and exciting interplay, than I did in the game at home to Everton where we were world beaters, for large spells away at WHU. Add to that the fantastic 2 legs over Liverpool, the EFL cup final and away at Arsenal in the same competition. Let alone Inter etc.

The EFL experience is what makes lifetime memories, the seasons when we also got to cup finals we would have had dire games, but it is forgotten.

The bare facts are that if you went back and watched the nil nils again, there probably would have been 3or 4 gilt edged chances we failed to take advantage of. Puel was dealt a forward line that couldn't score in a drugs den, and it has hasn't changed now.

For me every season in the 50 years I have supported Saints, I saw many dire games.

Very rarely in those years did I see the exhilarating and exciting interplay, than I did in the game at home to Everton where we were world beaters, for large spells away at WHU. Add to that the fantastic 2 legs over Liverpool, the EFL cup final and away at Arsenal in the same competition. Let alone Inter etc.

The EFL experience is what makes lifetime memories, the seasons when we also got to cup finals we would have had dire games, but it is forgotten.

The bare facts are that if you went back and watched the nil nils again, there probably would have been 3or 4 gilt edged chances we failed to take advantage of. Puel was dealt a forward line that couldn't score in a drugs den, and it has hasn't changed now.

Everton battered us at home after we took the lead ?

For me every season in the 50 years I have supported Saints, I saw many dire games.

Very rarely in those years did I see the exhilarating and exciting interplay, than I did in the game at home to Everton where we were world beaters, for large spells away at WHU. Add to that the fantastic 2 legs over Liverpool, the EFL cup final and away at Arsenal in the same competition. Let alone Inter etc.

The EFL experience is what makes lifetime memories, the seasons when we also got to cup finals we would have had dire games, but it is forgotten.

The bare facts are that if you went back and watched the nil nils again, there probably would have been 3or 4 gilt edged chances we failed to take advantage of. Puel was dealt a forward line that couldn't score in a drugs den, and it has hasn't changed now.

We played much better away from home than at home. The usual divs blindly reel off defeats at Swansea, Hull, Everton but in those all games we were much the better side and would have picked up points but for a proper goal scorer. I thought we were a much tougher proposition under Puel than Koeman, notwithstanding the results. The mystery will always remain the soporific home form.

A few 40 to 60 yo blokes pining for yesteryear on a thread does not constitute a tipping point.

Oi! Don't forget the 68 year olds

Came back from injury being the main point totally destroyed Gabbis goal scoring momentum getting injured.

Gabbiadini gave a recent interview where he said that we changed to a more defensive style of play later in the season.

Gabbiadini gave a recent interview where he said that we changed to a more defensive style of play later in the season.

I know I read it. He is clearly a confidence player he was on fire before the Injury it basically robbed him of all the momentum his purple patch was giving him. By the time he returned he looked way off the pace.

Oddly despite getting rid of Puel our front line has still failed to click or produce in any meaningful way.

Just listened to the French journo on 5live, and he gave CP great reviews and said that the first season was to get a strong base and then go on from there. I strongly believe we have dropped a bolok, not only with the sacking, but also his replacement.

It will be interesting to see if CP does well if that adds pressure on Pellgrino if he is still feeding us, unstructured nowhere football.

I don't agree the football is unstructured. It's too structured if anything. A little more off the cuff unstructured football might create more.

The bare facts are that if you went back and watched the nil nils again, there probably would have been 3or 4 gilt edged chances we failed to take advantage of. Puel was dealt a forward line that couldn't score in a drugs den, and it has hasn't changed now.

Then it was his fault that he did not change it. If MP fails with scoring more goals, then that too is his fault. Koeman basically got sacked for not replacing Lukaku, and as per the other thread, I asked why no plan B? You can apportion blame to who ever you want, but the hand Puel was dealt??? Me, if I don't like my hand, I try and change it. Pue was appointed at the end of June and had 2 whole months to change things.

Everton battered us at home after we took the lead ?

We played much better away from home than at home. The usual divs blindly reel off defeats at Swansea, Hull, Everton but in those all games we were much the better side and would have picked up points but for a proper goal scorer. I thought we were a much tougher proposition under Puel than Koeman, notwithstanding the results. The mystery will always remain the soporific home form.

Exactly where I am - some great away performances but at home...absolute dross. Refusing to change shape, pattern or players despite getting battered - Spurs being one - they couldn't suss out Rose was causing mayhem and sent out same formation second half.

I think he will work with a better squad at Leicester going forward than here but baffles me why a world class manager cannot see his tactics were so wrong at home games.

Well OldNick, from a customers' point of view, I found what was on offer last season devoid of any entertainment. Sure we had a win over Inter thanks to an own goal and we had the Cup run, but that all pales into insignificance with the dross in the league. I still cannot get out of my mind the home game against Hull. And that there nearly made me not renew my ST.

Exactly this. Of course there were some highlights last season, but they were rare jewels in a sea of turd. Last season for the first time I actually dreaded going to games rather than looking forward to it. Yes part of the problem was down to us having a weaker squad, but mostly it was down to Puel's negative, safety first tactics. That Hull game was a particular lowlight but there were too many like that.

Having said that, as glad as I am he is gone, he came across as a very decent bloke and I wish him well.

Puel was dealt a forward line that couldn't score in a drugs den, and it has hasn't changed now.

It's easy to forget that Long scored 15 goals the season before - He is be no means prolific, but given (enough) chances he will take them.

Oddly despite getting rid of Puel our front line has still failed to click or produce in any meaningful way.

I keep seeing this come up, but to me it's clear - We have appointed a manager who is pretty much an exact replica of the one we got rid of.

Has he done his first interview yet for the Leicester fans?

Has he done his first interview yet for the Leicester fans?

Any chance he will go Back to (Eric) Black for his French language skills? Or is Michael Appleton known around Leicester as Michel Ton De Pomme?

does it matter if he is not the worlds best person in front of a camera.There are many celebs who are fantastic with a script, you get them without one and they are as dull as hell.

Not in the slightest Nick, but to some on here it was massive

Has he done his first interview yet for the Leicester fans?

It's easy to forget that Long scored 15 goals the season before - He is be no means prolific, but given (enough) chances he will take them.

 

 

 

I keep seeing this come up, but to me it's clear - We have appointed a manager who is pretty much an exact replica of the one we got rid of.

Well, that's hardly surprising as they were appointed by the same person. The next manager would very likely be the same too.

 

I keep seeing this come up, but to me it's clear - We have appointed a manager who is pretty much an exact replica of the one we got rid of.

I'd agree but someone posted this up another thread which suggests that perhaps we are not. Apparently we press more than spurs now

people will say 8th and a cup final but our 8th place was the jammiest finish ever!

dunno if anyone can remember our final game vs Stoke but we were 10th at half time and didn't look we had the motivation to even get to eighth, and then Crouch scored and somehow other results went our way so we stayed where we were

I would have given Puel another season, but that game suggested he'd lost the dressing room and in this day and age once with player power and that once that happens theres only one option.

How are Leicester fans taking the news?

Absolute shocker for them. He must be brilliant at PowerPoint presentations.

I think it was the right decision to get rid of him, because we regressed in the final quarter of the season rather than building on the positives that we saw January - March, and it also appeared like he had lost the dressing room to an extent. I'm not sure we've replaced him with the right person, but that's a different matter.

 

Nevertheless, I think Claude conducted himsellf very well throughout his time here during difficult times, not least at the end of his tenure when the club acted very poorly in dragging their feet over his inevitable sacking - no doubt hoping to squirm out of paying his termination fee following interest from St Etienne. He deserved better than being hung out to dry.

 

Furthermore, he led the team in some of the most memorable moments/matches that I've had following Saints for some 25+ years. Yes, he might not have got us into Europe, and there were a few bleak moments along the way, but I saw us outplay Inter at the San Siro for 45 minutes, beat Inter at St Mary's, 85 minutes of an enthralling cup final and of course turning Liverpool over to get there.

 

For that reason I wish him no ill, though obviously hope to take maximum points off him and finish above him in the league! It will also be interesting to see how he goes about his job at Leicester. They are not a team set up for 'sideways' football, so it may give us an insight as to whether the issues during his time here were more to do with his philosophy, the players at his disposal, or pressure from the powers that be...

Exactly as I see it. Spot on IMO.

How are Leicester fans taking the news?

 

Absolute shocker for them. He must be brilliant at PowerPoint presentations.

I can tell, you're bit of a Sean Dyche man.

It's easy to forget that Long scored 15 goals the season before - He is be no means prolific, but given (enough) chances he will take them.

And apparently it's also easy to forget he had Mane next to him that season.

Yeah. Given enough chances he will take them!

Teams are lifted by great players, but individual performances also suffer when the team's not at it.